Bangladesh in Doing Business Index: Two notches up but still behind neighbours
Bangladesh has gone up two places in the World Bank's ranking of ease of doing business. However, the country still ranks 176 among 190 economies in the study owing largely to minute improvements in the parameters of resolving insolvency and registering property.
In the eight countries of South Asia, Bangladesh is only ahead of Afghanistan that ranked 183 in the “Doing Business 2017: Equal Opportunity for All” report released on Tuesday.
Bhutan was the best in the region at 73, followed by Nepal, 107, Sri Lanka, 110, India, 130, the Maldives, 135, and Pakistan, 144.
Bangladesh's distance to frontier (DTF) score, which is used for making the rankings, was 40.84 percent, slightly up from 40.68 percent of the previous report.
Compared to its competitors in East Asia, Bangladesh did not do so well on the overall doing business ranking and on the DTF score.
It has the lowest ranking as well as DTF score when compared to Thailand, China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia and Cambodia.
“The bottom line appears to be that regulatory reforms in Bangladesh are not making ostensible progress,” commented Zahid Hussain, lead economist of the WB's Dhaka office.
He said Bangladesh remains behind its competitors in South and East Asia, although on a few indicators it is ahead relative to some of the peers in the regions.
“Reform inertia relative to peers, rather than slippage, is the main reason for Bangladesh's poor ranking as well as the low marks on the absolute level of regularity quality,” he said.
Every year the WB's Doing Business report sheds light on how easy or difficult it is for a local entrepreneur to open and run a small to medium-size business when complying with relevant regulations.
The report tracks changes in regulations affecting 10 areas in the life cycle of a business: starting a business, dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, registering property, getting credit, protecting minority investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts and resolving insolvency.
Bangladesh's grade slightly advanced on two indicators -- moving up by one spot, 185, on registering property and two places, 151, on resolving insolvency -- relative to the revised ranking of 2016.
Even though the country's DTF score improved on starting a business, 0.02 percentage points, the ranking dropped by seven places to 122.
The DTF score improved on getting electricity, 0.95 percentage points, and dealing with construction permits, 0.35 percentage points, but the ranking remained unchanged to 187 and 138 respectively.
Bangladesh's ranking and DTF score remained unchanged in: trading across borders, 173, and enforcing contracts, 189.
Bangladesh made the worst performance in the parameter of paying taxes, as the country's DTF score declined by 0.51 percentage points and the rank by three places, 151.
“Bangladesh made paying taxes more complicated for companies by increasing the time it takes to prepare VAT and corporate income tax returns,” according to the doing business report.
The changes made it more difficult to do business in the country, it said.
The country also lost its position by five places to 157 in getting credit and one place to 70 in protecting minority investors.
Somalia, which secured the last place, has been added this year.
New Zealand topped the chart.
The countries behind Bangladesh and their DTF scores:
177 Congo, Rep (40.58)
178 Equatorial Guinea (39.83)
179 Yemen, Rep (39.57)
180 Chad (39.07)
181 Haiti (38.66)
182 Angola (38.41)
183 Afghanistan (38.10)
184 Congo, Dem Rep (37.57)
185 Central African Republic (36.25)
186 South Sudan (33.48)
187 Venezuela, RB (33.37)
188 Libya (33.19)
189 Eritrea (28.05)
190 Somalia (20.29)